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What Fandango Gets When It Buys Vudu
NBCUniversal’s Fandango snapped up Vudu from Walmart for an undisclosed price, making it the latest independent streaming service to get gobbled up by a big media player…more

Bryan Wiener and Sarah Hofstetter joined the ecommerce software company Profitero as CEO and president, respectively. This is the third business Wiener and Hofstetter have jointly led, following their long tenure at 360i before it was acquired by Dentsu and their short stint at Comscore – which ended after a year due to “irreconcilable differences” with the board. Profitero is a pre-profit startup, unlike Comscore, so the pair may have more control over the road map. One new product they plan to introduce with Profitero is Amazon ad campaign management by expanding on the company’s market share analytics, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Triad To Work It Out

WPP will shutter retail media agency Triad within 90 days. Some employees have already been laid off, and others will stay for a transition period, according to Ad Age sources. WPP bought Triad in 2016 for a reported $300 million to grow its ecommerce business under Xaxis. But when flagship client Walmart started in-housing ad sales and tech last year, Triad’s number was up. In late 2019, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club acquired some of Triad’s ad tech IP and a few of its executives. More.

Commerce Dreams

Google will change its shopping search portal this month, eliminating most ad units and elevating free, organic results. Amazon has frustrated some merchants by deprioritizing their deliveries and removing affiliate channels, and Google is trying to seize on that momentum to entice sellers and manufacturers into setting up Merchant Center accounts (which is how ecommerce products can qualify for free search exposure), Reuters reports. Google balked at the multibillion-dollar investment in delivery and customer service that would have been needed to compete with Amazon in commerce, so it will rely on search instead. “It’s daunting the amount of capital and expertise it would take to run such a business,” said Jon Venverloh, former Google shopping director who left last summer.